In addition to holding the “billionaire title,” these three individuals share a commitment to a new movement of social change, according to Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, co-authors of Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World. Bishop and Green believe that Gates, Clinton and Jolie are part of a new generation of wealthy, powerful people who are changing the role of philanthropy by combining focused, charitable donations with “big-business-style” investment strategies. Their book profiles several of these new philanthropists, including those listed above and other influentials like George Soros and U2’s Bono.
Bishop, American Business Editor/New York Bureau Chief for The Economist, explained the basis for focusing on the super-rich as change agents in a recent interview with Alliance Magazine: “The point we’re making is that there are more super-rich people around than ever before and they have all sorts of problem-solving talents developed in their business lives that they are now looking to bring to bear on some of the world’s big problems.”
But while these philantrocapitalists may be willing to take greater risks with their checkbooks as compared to traditional philanthropic institutions, many of them have a deep interest in accountability and rigorous performance measurement. Bishop’s and Green’s Values blog recently published an entry on philanthrocapitalism’s need for robust impact measurement systems. Acumen Fund’s new portfolio management system, called Pulse, was pointed to as one innovative “work-in-progress” solution aimed at addressing this challenge.
Bishop also recently interviewed Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz at the Clinton Global Initiative about Acumen Fund’s emphasis on market-based solutions to solving the problems of global poverty (the video can be viewed below or on The Economist’s website).
In reviewing the list of names and organizations included in Bishop’s and Green’s book, it is clear that philanthrocapitalism has as many distinctions in as it does similarities. Though the movement is unlikely to settle on a precise spot along the scale of pure philanthropy to pure capitalism, an exciting, unifying theme emerges: there is great promise in connecting high net worth individuals with innovative intermediaries to move from social investment to long-term impact.
Tags: Jacqueline Novogratz, metrics, PDMS, philanthrocapitalism, Pulse
As Michael Edwards flagged up in his brilliant pamphlet – Just Another Emperor – it is important to be aware of the myths and realities of philanthrocapitailsm too…
http://www.justanotheremperor.org
“The pamphlet asks if philanthrocapitalism represent a genuinely new kind of philanthropy; examines the evidence for applying business models in the social sector; and makes a series of recommendations on how they could best contribute to lasting social change.”
Thanks David. Michael Edwards’ book is quite provocative and has generated a lot of discussion in the base-of-the-pyramid (or development through enterprise) space.
Over at NextBillion.net, we ran a 5-part series on Bishop’s and Edwards’ works, available here:
http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2008/07/22/a-dialogue-on-philanthrocapitalism-the-importance-of-listening
Hope it’s useful to you.
Those interested in the continuing debate on “philanthrocapitalism” might be interested in this piece I’ve just published on openDemocracy:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/philanthrocapitalism-the-myths-and-realities-of-the-myths-and-realities
Speaking of Bill Clinton:
It is opined that Bill Clinton committed racist hate crimes, and I am not free to say anything further about it.
Respectfully Submitted by Andrew Y. Wang, J.D. Candidate
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
(I can type 90 words per minute, and there are probably thousands of copies on the Internet indicating the content of this post.)
_________________
“If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memories so they never got stale and faded.” Off the top of my head—it came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.